Princeton University Library is now providing access to PRAGDA Stream, a platform containing hundreds of Latin American, Portuguese and Spanish documentary and feature films covering a wide array of the region’s most relevant topics, including the global economy, immigration and exile, feminism, education, international politics, indigenous peoples, the arts, history, and others.
The General Manuscripts Miscellaneous Collection contains thousands of items that are not part of provenance-based or topical collections. Featured below are nine recently acquired historic documents about topics as varied as indigenous insurrections against Spanish colonial authorities, plantations and slavery in the Caribbean, the education of girls in 17th century Cuba, and the expulsion of Jesuits from Paraguay in the 18th century, among others.
Ruedas, Jerónimo de, and Others, Report to King Charles III of Spain on Indigenous Revolutionary Movements in South America, 1781 June 15
Ninety-six page unpublished, confidential report written by seven Spanish colonial judges (oidores) of the Real Audiencia of Río de La Plata y Charcas to King Charles III of Spain, offering their analysis of the independence movements of Quechua, Aymara, and other indigenous peoples against colonial rule in South America and connecting the indigenous uprisings of the 1770s and 1780s led by Túpac Amaru II and Tomás Katari to the American Revolution.
The report recounts events leading up to Indigenous liberation movements in the 1770s and 1780s, including the abusive administration of the Corregidor of Chayanta, which led Tomás Katari to travel to Buenos Aires in 1778 to air his people’s grievances to the Spanish authorities, as well as Katari’s arrest and execution and the rebellion that followed. The authors also discuss at length the rebellion led by Túpac Amaru II and the violent Spanish attempts to suppress it. They also write about the circulation of revolutionary pamphlets by Indigenous organizers in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, as a means of building support for a revolution against Spanish colonizers.
Click to view finding aid and the digitized manuscript.
Princeton University Library has been most fortunate to receive every year support from the Program in Latin American Studies to acquire items of special research, cultural and historic value. Recent acquisitions partially or completely funded by PLAS have ranged from 17th century rare books, to 19th and 20th century manuscripts and archives, to works by contemporary graphic artists from the region.
Showcased below are just a few of the many special items that are now available to the Princeton community and to visiting researchers thanks to the enduring partnership with PLAS.
Jorge Amado Letters, circa 1965-1985.
The collection consists of letters and postcards from Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado to the Portuguese journalist, essayist, translator, literary critic and teacher, Alvaro Salema. A complete collection description and finding aid are available here.
Princeton University Library is pleased to announce the acquisition by donation of the papers of Puerto Rican dancer, educator, choreographer, and independent scholar Alma Concepción. Concepción was first soloist of Ballets de San Juan, a member of the Carmen Amaya Company, Antonio´s Ballets de Madrid, and the Taller de Histriones mime company in Puerto Rico. She was the founder of Taller de Danza, a children’s movement and dance community organization based in Trenton, New Jersey. She was instructor of Spanish dance and ballet at the Princeton Ballet School and the Ballet Hispánico of New York, as well as Visiting Faculty at Fordham, Princeton, and Rutgers University. She has also been a long time and dedicated contributor to People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos, a grassroots literature program dedicated primarily to underserved communities.
September 2023 UPDATE: Archivo de Alma Concepción, 1939-2021 is now open for research.
In recent days, we unpacked a shipment of dozens of fascinating pieces of ephemera gathered across different regions of Brazil by our colleagues at at the Library of Congress Office in Rio de Janeiro.
Items address a wide variety of timely topics including indigenous rights, women’s rights, anti-racism, and COVID-19 public education. Also included are several political campaign propaganda pieces for the 2022 general election.
Continue readingSpecial Collections recently acquired three rare villancicos authored by Juana Inés de la Cruz. A self-taught poet, philosopher, and dramatist, she is considered one of the preeminent figures of Mexican and Spanish American colonial literature as well as a precursor of feminism in the Americas. The three items, published in Mexico in the last quarter of the 17th century, are among the earliest publications authored by de la Cruz.
